ICA Nepal

Nepal’s superwoman wins global award

By Ishu Subba

This is a story of Kesha Pariyar, a resident of Parbat district, western Nepal. In a country where caste hierarchy and patriarchal thinking and practices prevail, Kesha Pariyar stands out as “superwoman”. This year, she received the globally coveted Business for Peace Award at a ceremony at the City Hall in Oslo, Norway, on May 15. It was given by the Business for Peace Foundation, based in Oslo.

A few years ago, Kesha Pariyar was one of the many suppressed voices, forced by society to lead a life of misery. Married at the age of 18, Kesha struggled to support her family of eight for almost 20 years. As a member of a so called lower-caste group, she had to deal with discrimination in addition to her illiteracy and poor economic background.

She found a ray of hope in the Leadership Development training conducted by ICA Nepal in 1999. She describes it as a moment of self-discovery during which she learned to improve her socio-economic life by starting her own business. She credits this change in her life to the encouragement given to her by various members of the ICA such as Don Elliott from ICA USA, Ghee Bowman from ICA UK, and Shizuyo and Wayne Ellsworth of ICA Japan.

She established the Manisha Tailoring and Training Centre in 2003. She took a loan to buy a sewing machine and urged her husband, who was then working in the Gulf, to return home to help in her business. She also involved herself in community development activities, focusing on the upliftment of the socio-economic status of the “untouchables” in her area despite threats and intimidation.

With the support of ICA Nepal, she organized “micro entrepreneurs” and encouraged them to advocate for their causes. She was elected as the Chairperson of the District Micro Entrepreneurs’ Groups Association, Parbat, in 2005 and was unanimously nominated as the chairperson of the National Micro Entrepreneurs Federation Nepal (NMEFEN) the following year. Her struggle to rise from a “low caste”, poor and powerless woman to one of the leading figures in the society of Nepali entrepreneurs has won her the Business for Peace Award, a recognition given to people who foster peace and harmony by creating shared values between business and society. Kesha, a representative of over 60,000 micro entrepreneurs, shares the limelight with five others: Selima Ahmed (Bangladesh), Ouided Bouchamaoui (Tunisia), Sir Richard Branson (UK), Adnan Kassar (Lebanon) and Marilyn Carlson Nelson (USA).

Kesha speaks for many marginalized groups. She tries to identify local resources to engage poor people in enterprise development and acts as a bridge between micro entrepreneurs and service providers. Involved in various groups and associations, she has been pushing for laws and policies that ensure concessions and support to micro entrepreneurs.

Since 1998, the ICA Nepal has been working in various parts of the country with a focus on human capacity building through training and facilitation. It believes that “every individual has a capacity to bring change in his/her situation”. Kesha Pariyar is proof of this truth.

Ishu Subba is a member of ICA Nepal